PECANWOOD GOLF ESTATE

Pecanwood Golf Estate, designed by Jack Nicolson and implemented by a South African/Malaysian development partnership, was one of the first golf estates to employ an international design team.

NLA’s initial involvement assisting new home owners dissatisfied with their original gardens, soon become involvement in the golf course landscape design. This resulted in a good understanding of the aesthetic preferred by the South African buyers and both the South African and Malaysian developers. NLA was appointed in 1998 and successfully transformed the original American design into a landscape that blended into its natural surrounds with 3500 trees and indigenous planting.

The project was rolled out in 14 phases over eight years and included the landscaping of the lake surrounds, roads, play areas, interface planting, public open spaces as well as the re-landscaping of the main entrance, clubhouse and boat club area. In addition, NLA also drafted a street tree masterplan, landscaping guidelines, house garden design criteria and maintenance specification standards.The auditing of this also became NLA’s responsibility.

With the assistance of GWIS, NLA optimized the original irrigation by hiring a second pump system and diverting effluent and storm water into irrigation reservoirs to supplement the irrigation water from the dam.

By the end of the project, from only two directors and two staff members, NLA had grown to a staff complement of nine– rendering Pecanwood one of the key projects that increased both NLA’s prominence and profile.